With 'The Grinch', and Jim's new festive feast, 'A Christmas Carol', you might be forgiven for thinking Jim has a grudge against the holiday season. At the press conference for the film this afternoon, Jim told reporters "It's a hard time of year for some people. It's a confronting time of year, i've had some bad ones."
But the effervescent comic managed to see the funny side to his Scrooge character. "The one thing I will say that I wanted to, not replicate, but definitely have some of it in there, was the bitterness that he portrayed," Jim said. "The way he had sourness in his character. It wasn't just on the surface. You imagined that he had the worst case of acid reflux on Earth. There was a true bitterness, a foul taste in his mouth, and that was something that I wanted to consider." When asked where he drew inspiration from, Jim cited Alistair Sim's performance as Scrooge in the 1951 adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," to be the greatest rendition of the story.
Brought to the big screen by the Disney studio and director Robert Zemekis, the holiday favourite is a new slant on the tale, crafted through motion-capture technology similar to Beowulf. With Jim playing Ebeneezer Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas past , present and future and Colin Firth playing his nephew. Fellow stars include Gary Oldman as Bob Cratchit and Robin Wright Penn.

"It's not just voiceover work, these are complete performance by all of the actors," explained Carrey. "This technology takes it to another place."
Carrey nodded seriously. "When you start out talking out of your butt, it's a long road to get to this place."

"Welcome to the plight!" Carrey told Sun Media yesterday in a brief exclusive interview. Carrey was talking about distributors backing off because of the film's sensitive subject matter and eroticized love scenes involving him and Ewan McGregor. At the Sundance filmfest, timid Americans were shocked by the intensity of the simulated sex.

"How do I get around it?" Carrey asked rhetorically about the resistance. "I don't! It falls wherever it falls. I can't do anything about it. I'm hoping that it has a chance to be seen but I just put it out there. It is a wonderful story. It is an amazing story and a gutsy script."

"Just create it," Carrey said of putting the work out there and hoping for the best. But the For Sale sign remains.

That is the sales pitch. But Carrey said attitudes towards motion capture are troublesome. "It is an odd situation. I see actors doing amazing performances in what is generally perceived by the audience as some sort of voice-over work. Of course, it's a lot more than that. In addition to a complete performance by an actor, you have these wonderful artists working in this cutting edge technology that can enhance the performance and take it to another level, to another place and time, like never before. But it is a complete performance."

However you tell a story is all right," he said. "Some stories are told with puppets, some stories are told with illustrations, and some stories are told by a book," What's special about this is the combination of science and art. "It's like the left and right hemispheres (of the brain) coming together in an explosion."
However you tell a story is all right," he said. "Some stories are told with puppets, some stories are told with illustrations, and some stories are told by a book," What's special about this is the combination of science and art. "It's like the left and right hemispheres (of the brain) coming together in an explosion."